Chapter 1
An Overview of the China-EU Strategic
Partnership (2003–2013)
Hong Zhou
Abstract China and the EU announced their “Comprehensive Strategic
Partnership”10 years ago. In the past 10 years, China and the EU have each
experienced rapid internal development while giving each other impetus for
development. In general terms, there have been strategic elements of cooperation in
the China-Europe relations, but there have also been ups and downs as well as a
variety of difficulties lying between China and the EU. This report aims at giving
the 10-year period of China-Europe relations an overall assessment, briefly dis-
cussing experiences and lessons learned, explaining the cooperation between China
and the EU in differentfields, with different institutions and on different platforms.
This report shall also try to compare the China-EU relations with the EU-US
relations. Andfinally, based on the assessment of the 10 years of the China-Europe
relations, this report shall make an attempt to address the issues of the driving forces
and the future directions for the further development of those relations.
Keywords China-EU relationsThree pillars of China-EU relationsChina-EU
relations in the context of global governanceRelations between china and EU
member statesComparison between Chin-EU and US-EU relations
China established an official relationship with the predecessor of the European
Union (the EU)—the European Community (the EC) as early as 1975, laying the
legal foundation for the relations between China and the EC and its member States.
After that, the steady development of China-EC/EU relations was credited to three
basic factors: the step-by-step promotion of China’s reform and opening up and the
overall development in different areas, the gradual enlargement of the EC/EU and
its own continuously improved capacity, and the motivation of globalization. Based
on the facilitation provided by globalization, the opportunities attained due to
H. Zhou (&)
Institute of European Studies of CASS, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS),
Beijing, China
H. Zhou
Chinese Association for European Studies, Beijing, China
©Social Sciences Academic Press and Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017
H. Zhou (ed.),China-EU Relations, Research Series on the Chinese Dream
and China’s Development Path, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1145-0_
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